


Reclamation

by MiaCooper



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Adult Content, Canon Compliant, Episode: s01e01 Caretaker, Episode: s02e20 Investigations, F/M, Mosaic, Pathways
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-28
Updated: 2016-09-28
Packaged: 2018-08-18 06:12:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 19,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8151856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiaCooper/pseuds/MiaCooper
Summary: "In a way, Paris has been your personal reclamation project."





	1. The Boy

**Author's Note:**

> I've co-opted some references and/or dialogue from ST:VOY episodes _Caretaker, Lifesigns_ and _Investigations_. This story also assumes that _Mosaic_ and _Pathways_ are canon, or at least semi-canon. This story is an exploration of what could have, and may have, happened. I've kept it canon-compliant except where otherwise noted.
> 
> The dates I’ve used in this story may or may not correspond with the show and/or the books. I’ve just gone with what makes sense in my head-canon.
> 
> Re Paris’ and Janeway’s age difference; it’s never explicitly stated in canon, but in my head they’ve always been 8 or 9 years apart, which fits pretty well with the actors’ ages. Also I always assumed Janeway was about 35 when she was given command of Voyager. So that’s what I’m going with here (and in all my other stories, FYI).
> 
>  **Disclaimer**  
>  So much untapped potential with these two, Paramount. What were you thinking?
> 
>  **Thanks**  
>  To my amazing betas, Mary S and LittleObsessions, thank you. This story is a million times better because of you.

**July, 2353 – Paris Residence, Belvedere**

“You don’t want to be here.”

I look up in surprise. The kid’s standing in front of me, the Captain’s son; maybe nine or ten years old, rumpled blond hair and blue eyes too old for his face. I thought I’d been hiding it pretty well, and I feel a stab of irritation that some ten-year-old kid can see through me.

“Is it that obvious?”

He’s been shifting his weight from one foot to the other, eyes wary, but when I answer him he grins and plops down next to me on the chair-swing. “Don’t worry,” he says. “Nobody’s looking anyway.”

“Except you.” I raise my eyebrows at him. “Shouldn’t you be in bed? It’s pretty late.”

He shrugs. “Guess they’ve forgotten about me.”

There’s an unspoken _again_ at the end of that sentence, and unexpectedly, I feel kind of sorry for him. I nudge him with my shoulder. “Feel like showing me around? I heard your sister say your family has a private dock.” I point my chin in the direction of the cove.

The kid perks up. “You like boats?”

“Sure.”

He slips off the swing. “I’m not allowed out on the water after dark, but I can show you around the boathouse. C’mon.” He tugs at my hand. I get up and almost over-balance; my foot’s gone to sleep from tucking it beneath me.

It’s a warm night and most of the party guests are still hanging around the garden. Grown-ups in tuxedoes and evening gowns mingle, champagne glasses in hand, polite laughter and stuffy conversation against a backdrop of discreet jazz music. By unspoken agreement, the kid and I avoid the party, skirting the edge of the torchlight onto the step-stones leading to the dock. The bay breeze picks up a little, ruffling my hair and bringing with it the scents of salt and citronella. I feel my mood lift for the first time tonight, and I bend to slip off the high-heeled sandals I’d planned such a different outing for, hooking the straps over my fingers. We follow the winding path downwards as crepe myrtle and jacaranda give way to pepper trees and native oak, our footfalls deadened on the beaten earth. The solar lights marking the edges of the path are dim, and I’m glad the kid’s so familiar with this terrain; there are stones and tree-roots criss-crossing the track and it would be easy to stumble.

And then the densely-clustered forest gives way to open ground that slopes all the way down to the bay, and I stop in my tracks, raising my face as the salt breeze picks up my hair and tosses it. Below us, the shoreline is dotted with rickety wooden jetties where small yachts and dinghies sway against their tethers. The moon is so low and bright it outshines the stars and unfurls a golden carpet across the open water. The only sounds I can hear are the soft sighing of the wind through the trees behind us and the slap of small waves against the shore.

I follow the kid down to the boathouse, a small, paint-peeling weatherboard shack that sits to one side of the nearest jetty.

“In here,” he says.

I follow him in, ducking through the low doorway. Inside it’s larger than I’d expected. There’s a pristine four-man yacht tethered to a wooden post, its sails tucked down under a tarpaulin, a couple of canoes and a small dinghy. A rough timber walkway, just wide enough for a single person, hugs the inside edge of the boathouse.

“Watch your step,” he warns, pointing to a tangle of fishing net heaped on the walkway. He waves an arm at the dinghy. “That one’s mine. Well, my sisters’ too, but they don’t use it anymore.”

“It’s nice.” I turn to look at the yacht. My family goes sailing every year or so at our lakeside cabin, but our yacht is nowhere near as flashy as this one.

“My dad’s pride and joy,” he says without inflection, following my gaze.

Instinct warns me not to praise it, so I shrug disinterestedly. “Want to go sit on the jetty?”

I glance at him in the murky light and something in his eyes tells me I’ve passed some kind of test. I don’t know why, but it makes me smile.

“This way,” he says. He rummages in a small cabinet and holds up a couple of snack bars, then leads me out of the boathouse and onto the jetty. We sit on the edge, our feet dangling over the water. He passes me a snack bar and we munch in companionable silence for a while.

“So how come you didn’t want to be here tonight?” he asks eventually.

I shrug, some of my earlier mood settling on me again. “I had other plans. My parents kind of forced me to come.” I lean back on my elbows. “I start at the Academy in a couple of months and they said I’d meet people tonight who’ll be important for my Starfleet career.”

“Like my dad?”

“I guess so, yeah.”

“Did you talk to him?”

I think back to my conversation with Captain Paris. He’d asked me which track I’m taking, and when I told him science he’d clapped me on the shoulder and told me to consider him as my advisor when I start my second-year project. _I only take the best and brightest, Katie_ , he’d said, _but somehow I suspect you’ll be one of those_.

“Yeah, I talked to him,” I answer. “He seems nice.”

The kid looks away. “Yeah,” he mutters.

I don’t really know what to say to that, so I stay quiet. The kid swings his feet and picks at a splintered section of the cross-plank we’re sitting on. “How come you want to be in Starfleet?” he asks.

I open my mouth to tell him what I tell everyone: that I want to discover stellar phenomena and understand them, that I want to explore distant stars, that I want to be a part of something greater than myself. And all those things are true, but what I say to this kid, this strange, wise-eyed boy, is “I want to make my dad proud of me.”

He turns that blue gaze on me and gives me a half-smile that’s far too bitter for a kid so young. I don’t really know what to make of it, so I turn away to watch the moon on the water.

“So what were you supposed to be doing tonight?” he asks after a while.

“I had a date.” I sound sulky even to myself, still smarting from the injustice of it. Especially as Phoebe got out of coming here by claiming she had to work on some art project. “My boyfriend booked us into a hotel.”

“You mean like, for the night?”

“Yeah. It was supposed to be special, but my parents decided to screw that up for me.”

“You were going to do it with him,” he realises.

It’s the expression he uses – _do it with him_ – that brings me up short. It’s so euphemistically dirty, so juvenile, and until this moment I’ve almost forgotten that I’m talking to a ten year old kid. Though what else would I call what I was planning to do with Cheb tonight? Have sex? Make love? Fuck?

“Yeah,” I answer eventually. “I guess that was my plan.”

“How come?” he asks. “Do you love him?”

I can’t help smiling at the innocence of his question. But then I think about how to answer him, and my smile fades. Even though Cheb and I have said the words I’ve never actually believed them. I’m pretty sure Cheb says them to get into my pants, and I return the sentiment because that’s what’s expected of me. Because even in the twenty-fourth century, nice girls – nice, well-bred, educated Admirals’ daughters – don’t give up their virginity to boys they don’t love.

“I don’t know,” I admit. “I like him a lot. Plus I’m sick of being the only eighteen year old virgin I know.”

I can’t believe I just said that aloud. Blushing, I hunch away from him, this kid who can apparently make me spill my secrets without even trying.

“I bet you’re not,” he says wisely. “Pete Henworth told everyone he French-kissed Salma Bailey at camp last week and it turned out he was lying.”

I can’t help laughing. “You’re probably right.”

The breeze kicks up over the water and I shiver a little, and the kid takes his jacket off and drapes it over my shoulders. For a moment I’m too surprised to speak. It’s such a sweet and observant thing to do, and he does it so naturally, as if it’s of no consequence. Cheb is well brought up too, but I don’t think he’s ever noticed me the way this kid notices me.

“Thanks,” I manage, swallowing against a completely unexpected lump in my throat. I bump my shoulder against his. “You know, I’m actually glad I came tonight.”

“Me, too,” he grins. “Anyway, everybody else in there is like a hundred years old.”

“Your sisters are about the same age I am.”

“Yeah, but you’re different.”

“I am?”

“Sure. All they care about is talking to people they think are important.”

“Like your dad,” I murmur.

To be honest, I’m glad I got to talk to Captain Paris tonight. I want to graduate first in my Academy class. I’ll work my behind off to do it, but it can only help to make an impression on people with influence. People like the Captain.

Maybe my parents were right about me coming to this party. It’s not like Cheb is going to turn down the chance to screw me some other night, is it?

Maybe I’m not so different after all.

That train of thought makes me uncomfortable, so I change the subject. “So what do you want to be when you grow up?” I ask the kid.

“I used to want to join the Federation Navy,” he says without hesitation.

“You’re really into sailing, huh?”

“Yeah.” Then the light fades from his eyes. “But my dad says I’m going to be in Starfleet.”

I turn to look at him. “You know, you won’t always have to do what your dad says.”

“You don’t know my dad,” he mutters. “Anyway, if I join Starfleet I can be a pilot.”

“But is that what you really want?”

“I love flying. My dad lets me go in the flight sims whenever he gets stuck taking me to his office. I’m already on level seven.”

“Level seven?” I’m seriously impressed. Cadets in the flight controller stream usually don’t reach level seven until the end of their first year.

“Yeah. Commander Timmons says I’m a dead cert for Nova Squadron when I get to the Academy.”

If he’s that good at the age of ten, he’ll probably out-fly the helmsman of the Enterprise by the time he’s a cadet. “I bet your dad’s proud of you.”

He shifts away from me, picking at the splintered planks on the jetty. “My dad says I waste too much time on comics and stuff.” He changes his voice, making it gruff and harsh, obviously quoting his father. “‘You’ll never amount to anything if you don’t focus, Thomas.’”

I can’t help blinking. “What does he want you to focus on?”

“Advanced subspace geometry, astrophysics, survival strategies, interspecies protocol, warp theory …”

My eyes get wider with each tick of his fingers. Some of the Academy courses he’s naming, most cadets don’t even take until their second or third year. “But you’re just a kid,” I interrupt him. “When are you supposed to have fun?”

“Fun won’t make me an admiral,” he says, obviously quoting again.

“Do you want to be an admiral?”

“I just want to fly,” he answers, somewhat plaintively.

Impulsively, I put my arm around his shoulders and he leans into me without hesitation. “I meant what I said, you know. When you’re grown up you can decide what you want to be.”

“Is that what you’re doing?”

“I –” My mouth opens, then shuts. “I’ve wanted to be in Starfleet since I was younger than you are.”

“Because of your dad?”

“Partly,” I admit. “Okay, more than partly, but it’s honestly what I want to do. I know my dad is proud of that, but he’d be just as proud of me if I wanted to do something else. My sister wants to be an artist and he’s just as proud of her.”

“You’re lucky,” he says softly. Then he yawns, suddenly and overwhelmingly.

“You should be in bed.” I check my chrono. “It’s almost midnight.”

“I don’t want to go back yet,” he admits.

I shift back from the jetty’s edge and tug him down so his head is resting on my lap. “Take a nap if you want,” I invite. “I won’t let you fall in the water.”

“Thanks,” he says, yawning again. He closes his eyes and his breathing evens out, and when I’m pretty sure he’s asleep I rest my hand on his head, combing my fingers through his hair.

They find us there about an hour later – his parents and mine. They’re worried; they’ve been looking for us for some time, apparently. My mother is holding my wrap. I slip the kid’s jacket off my shoulders and hand it to Mrs Paris.

I watch Captain Paris closely as he lifts the still-sleeping boy in his arms. He cradles him to his chest, and although his face is set and severe, his eyes are not.

“Thanks for looking after him, Katie,” he says to me.

“He looked after me, too,” I answer, and my father slings an arm around me as we walk back up to the house.

 


	2. The Aide

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Re Owen Paris’ rank, Memory Alpha lists him as a captain while commanding the Al-Batani, despite _Mosaic_ claiming he was already an admiral (and that the ship was called the Icarus). I suppose an admiral could be given a starship command if its mission involved secret intelligence operations under cover of scientific research, but I’ll stick with Memory Alpha on this one.

**August, 2358 – Starfleet HQ, San Francisco**

It’s a good thing I brought a PADD loaded with games and comics, because my dad’s been shut in his office for two hours now. It’s well past the time he said he’d take me over to the flight school. I’m pissed, and I feel stupid because I knew this was going to happen.

Screw him anyway. I could’ve gone to New York with Mom this weekend, which still would’ve been less fun than the party Charlie’s throwing while his parents are away but would’ve been a whole lot less crap than this. But no, Mom had other plans. She wants me and Dad to spend time together, to bond, or some bullshit. I told her there was no way I’d call that a good time and neither would he, but apparently my opinion counts for shit around here.

What really makes me want to punch myself in the face is that my illustrious father fed me some line about it being good for both of us and slapped me on the back, and for about five minutes I actually started to believe him. I started to hope we might spend some time talking or doing stuff together, maybe even without him getting mad at me and calling me a lazy fuck-up and an embarrassment to the Paris family name.

He promised we’d only duck into his office so he could check up on his new aide and then we’d head straight over to the flight sims. Of course, when we got here some admiral commed him and he closed his door – “I’ll be ten minutes, Thomas” – and hasn’t shown his face since.

I guess at least that means he hasn’t had time to tell me how disappointed he is in me. Maybe today’s not a total loss after all.

I’m bored rigid and my ass hurts from sitting on this fucking waiting-room couch and I’m hungry enough to eat an Alvarian beetle sloth. Plus, I’m starting to feel sorry for his aide, who’s been stuck with babysitting duty. Although probably not as sorry as she seems to be feeling for me.

“Can I get you anything, Thomas?” she asks for the third time in half an hour.

Fuck this. “How about a site-to-site transport to my friend’s place?”

“I’m sorry, I can’t do that.” To give her credit, she does look genuinely sorry. “Your father shouldn’t be too much longer, though.”

I give her the flat-eyed stare that’s guaranteed to send my dad’s blood pressure through the ceiling. “Uh-huh,” I deadpan, making it pretty clear I don’t believe a word she’s saying, and that I know she doesn’t, either.

She gives me back the same look to the power of ten. Holy shit. Involuntarily, I straighten up; she probably punches half my father’s weight but she has a better “shape up, asshole” glare than he does. And his is pretty impressive. Suddenly I’m not quite as bored anymore.

“What’s your name again?” I ask her.

“Ensign Janeway.” She pauses. “Call me Kate.”

“Well, Ensign Call-me-Kate Janeway, since you got the shit end of the stick on your current posting, I’ll let you in on a little secret about my dad. It might be painful for you now, but in the long run you’ll be better off losing the hero-worship. He’s an asshole and a liar, and you can’t depend on him for anything.”

She just looks at me for a minute, and then she gets up from behind her dinky little desk outside the asshole’s office door and comes over to sit beside me on the couch. “You don’t remember me, do you?” she asks me.

“Should I?”

“I suppose not,” she says thoughtfully. “We’ve only met once before, a few years ago. We sat on your jetty together, and you told me you wanted to join the Naval Patrol.”

That does stir a faint memory, but I’m damned if I’ll give her the satisfaction. “I was full of shit,” I shrug. “Who wants to screw around on boats when you can fly a starship?”

“So you’re planning to join the ‘fleet?”

“What else is there?”

She gives me a long, even look, and for some reason it makes me want to squirm. “Like father, like son, huh?” she says.

I’m so pissed off I can’t even speak for a minute.

“I’m _nothing_ like him,” I manage finally, the shake in my voice pissing me off even more. Suddenly I’m on my feet, wanting to hit something. Luckily for Ensign Janeway, I’ve been brought up not to hit girls. Instead I drop-kick my PADD into a corner then give the legs of her desk a couple of solid kicks for good measure. After, I feel pretty stupid. And my foot hurts.

She’s still sitting on the couch, watching me with a mild expression. “Feel better?” she asks.

“Not really,” I mutter.

“What were you and your dad supposed to do today?”

“He promised he’d let me log some time in the flight sims.” Even to my own ears I sound sulky. _Really making a solid impression here, Tommy_ , I think. Then I wonder why the hell I care about impressing some skinny, freckled ensign who sees more of my dad than I do. I’m sure the old bastard’s already given her chapter and verse on my shortcomings anyway.

She gets up and moves back to her desk, tapping something into her comm unit. “Simulator Two is free in about an hour,” she tells me. “Want to grab some lunch before we head over there?”

“Won’t you get in trouble?” I ask suspiciously.

“I’m due for a break, too. Give me a minute to route the Captain’s calls to my commbadge and we can go.” She taps a few commands into her console and straightens up. “So, what do you like to eat? Italian okay?”

“What does it matter? I can get anything I want from the replicator.”

“Oh, we’re not going to the replimat.” She smiles and holds out her hand, and before I can stop myself I’m taking hold of it. She starts pulling me toward the door.

“So where are we going, then?”

“A little place I know downtown. It’s been run by the same family for generations. The food is amazing.” Her smile widens into a grin. “And they make _killer_ coffee.”

I can’t help grinning back. Today is looking better by the minute.

=/\=

“Okay, that was good,” I admit as we lean back in our chairs after polishing off a couple of servings of _linguine con vongole_.

“Told you so, Thomas.” She gives me a half-smile, which turns into a full smile as the waiter places a pot of coffee in the middle of our table.

“Why do you call me that?”

She blinks at me. “You mean, your name?”

“Only my dad calls me Thomas, and sometimes the school principal. Call me Tom.”

“All right, Tom,” she says easily. She sips her coffee. “Do you often get called in to see the principal?”

“More often than you’d believe.”

“Well, that surprises me. According to your father, you’re the second coming of the Messiah.”

I stare at her. “Real funny, Kate.”

“I’m not kidding. My second day on the job, I was already sick of hearing your name.” She deepens her voice and puffs out her chest. “‘Thomas won the state mathematics championship three years in a row. Thomas beat the computer on a flight test sim only third-year cadets take. Thomas is going to be a captain by the time he’s thirty.’” She tosses her head, grinning, and returns to her natural voice. “People warned me Captain Paris was tough to work for, but they didn’t tell me it’s because nobody can measure up to his teenaged son.”

I’ve had enough of this bullshit. I toss my napkin onto my plate and get to my feet. “Well, thanks for lunch, Ensign. It’s been a blast.”

“Tom!” Chasing after me, she has her hand on my arm before I can open the restaurant door. “I wasn’t making fun of you. Your dad really does brag about you like that. Honestly, I’m a little jealous,” she says, her voice softening.

“Of me?” I stare down at her, just now realising how short she is. In her regulation boots she barely reaches my chin.

“Come on.” She tugs me through the doorway. “We need to get moving if we’re going to make your simulator session on time.”

She walks fast, but my legs are longer and I keep up easily. “Why are you jealous of me?”

It takes her a while to answer, and when she does her voice is soft. “I know my father loves me,” she says. “But he never talks about me the way your father talks about you.”

“How do you know?”

“I suppose I don’t,” she concedes. “It just feels like the only time I get any attention from him is when I’ve worked my ass off at something. And people wonder why I’m an over-achiever.”

“Well, the only time _my_ father gives me the time of day is when I get my ass hauled into the principal’s office.” I think about what I’ve just said, what it reveals about me, and try not to think about it anymore.

She laughs, linking her arm through mine. “The shrinks would have a field day with us.”

=/\=

“Are you sure you can get us in here?” I ask as we walk into the flight school. “I thought you had to be a command-level officer to sign in a civilian.”

She smirks at me and starts unbraiding her hair, shaking it out so it falls in waves down her back. I can’t help staring at it; it’s really pretty hair. “Watch and learn, Tom,” she murmurs, sauntering toward the security desk. There’s an extra sway to her hips as she approaches the crewman on sentry duty. “Hi,” she says breathlessly, and he looks up from his console with a smile that sparks in his eyes as Kate leans over his desk.

“Good afternoon, sir,” he says politely.

She gives a throaty little laugh, and I can practically see him stand to attention – and I don’t mean in the way a crewman responds to a senior officer. “Please don’t call me sir. I _hate_ it,” she whispers, as if she’s telling him a cheeky secret. He smiles back at her as she tosses her hair over one shoulder. “I’m Ensign Janeway, from Captain Paris’ office.”

“What can I do for you, ma’am?”

“Oh God, that’s almost as bad. Anyway, the Captain asked me to bring his son here so Tom can log some time in the sims. He’d have brought Tom himself, but he’s been called away urgently. Some Intelligence briefing – I don’t know the details. Anyway, is Suite Two ready?”

“Ready, ma’am? Uh, Ensign?”

“For Tom,” she says, a little impatiently. “You must have seen him around before. He’s slated for Nova Squad.”

The security guard glances at me in faint disbelief. I can practically see him thinking, _that kid? Nova Squadron?_ I do my best to look bored and mature.

“I’m sorry, Ensign,” he says nervously. “I don’t have any listing for, uh, Mr Paris today.”

Kate sighs. “Don’t tell me I forgot to reserve the slot. Look, I could try calling the Captain so he can confirm for you, but the last I heard he was still talking to Admiral Takeshi about the Cardassian situation and I’d really rather not bother him with this.” She gives the crewman wide blue eyes. “The simulator _is_ vacant, isn’t it?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Great!” Kate favours him with a wide, sunny smile and turns to beckon me over. “C’mon, Tom, you should still be able to get about an hour in.” She turns back to the guard. “Thank you so much, Crewman, um…?”

“Symons, ma’am,” he supplies helpfully. “Jacob Symons.”

“Thank you, Jacob. I _really_ appreciate your understanding. If you could just show us through?”

“Uh…” Symons dithers, and I feel a little sorry for him; he’s so clearly outclassed, and he knows it. “Yes, ma’am,” he says resignedly, tapping in the code to allow us through the forcefield.

Kate grabs my hand and yanks me through, smiling all the while. “Nova Squadron thanks you too, Jacob,” she calls over her shoulder, and tugs me down the hallway to Simulator Two.

=/\=

She’s watching me with new respect when I finally shut down the sim. “Your dad wasn’t kidding,” she remarks. “You really _are_ good.”

I shrug like it’s no big deal. It is, though. I’ve been told I can fly by people with a hell of a lot more know-how than Ensign Kate, but it’s her opinion that matters to me right now.

“One day, I’m going to be chief science officer on a starship,” she tells me as we make our way through the HQ grounds, heading back to my father’s office. “Maybe you’ll be at the helm.”

Her commbadge chirps before I can answer; it’s my dad, telling her to get back to her post immediately. “I’ll be right there, sir,” she says. “Oh, and I have your son with me. I left a message telling you we were going to lunch. I hope you weren’t worried.”

There’s a pause before he responds. ~Thank you, Ensign. I hope Thomas hasn’t been any trouble.~

“Not at all, Captain,” she says politely.

She sends me a sidelong glance as he cuts the connection, but I can’t meet her eye. It’s pretty clear my dad was caught out when Kate mentioned me. He’d forgotten I was even supposed to be here. I can tell she knows it, too, but she doesn’t pat my hand or say something comforting and meaningless. I’m torn between gratitude and wishing I’d never met her so she wouldn’t have to bear witness to my humiliation.

The door between my dad’s office and the anteroom is open when we get back. “Ensign,” he calls without getting up. “I need you to collate the reports from the past six months’ surveys of regions near Cardassian space and highlight any items of interest. Get it on my desk by 0900 tomorrow.”

“Trouble, sir?” she asks.

“Preparation. We’ll need all the information we can get if we’re going to be stationed near the Demilitarised Zone.”

“Sir?” I can see her shoulders tensing, hear the disbelieving excitement in her voice.

My dad looks up at her with a grin. “You heard me, Ensign. I’ll be assuming command of the Al-Batani for a scientific survey mission. Since one of our areas of study is closely related to your junior thesis topic, you’ll be a key member of the science department. Better pack your bags, Katie. We’ll be leaving in five days.”

“Yes, Captain,” she says, and when she turns around she’s beaming. I can’t help grinning back at her, but my smile fades when I hear my father calling me in.

“Thomas,” he addresses me in that tone that somehow manages to convey simultaneous expectation and disapproval. “I’m going to be very busy for the rest of the day. Ensign Janeway will make sure you get home safely.” He comes around from behind his desk, clapping me on the shoulder as he steers me into the anteroom. “It’d probably be best if you stay at a friend’s house tonight, son. I can’t say what time I’ll be home. Ensign,” he raises his voice, “see my son to the transporter, will you?”

And that’s it. No apology for forgetting he promised to take me to the sims. Not even a flicker of recognition that he’s completely fucked up my day. Thanks, Dad. It’s been … exactly as expected.

On the bright side, I guess I’ll be going to Charlie’s party after all.

Kate walks me to the transporter pad and dismisses the operator. “Are you going to be okay tonight, Tom?” she asks. “You won’t be all on your own, will you?”

“I’ll be fine,” I assure her. “I can take care of myself.”

“Okay.” She keys in the transport coordinates for my house, then rests her hands on the console. “It was a privilege to watch you fly today, Tom. And I really enjoyed lunch.”

“Me, too,” I tell her. “Thanks.”

“I hope I’ll see you again sometime. Maybe when I’m back from my mission.”

I watch the way her eyes light up. She’s so Starfleet, I realise; going into space, scientific missions, the whole idea of it clearly thrills her, and here she is, about to get everything she’s worked for. I wonder if I’ll ever be that ambitious. I wonder if I’ll ever see her again.

I won’t be counting on either of those things.

“I hope so, too.”

She smiles. “Energising,” she says, and as I dematerialise, I’m not thinking about my dad’s broken promises or reaching level twelve on the sims today; I’m thinking about the colour of her eyes.


	3. The Admiral's Son

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Clearly, I’m accepting _Mosaic_ as mostly-canon, but I’ve played a little fast and loose with both the timeline of events in that book and the Arias incident – in my head-canon, Janeway didn’t get out of that so lightly.
> 
> That said, there’s a warning on this one for descriptions of violence and non-consensual sex.

**December, 2359 – Stowe Gallery, Hartford, Connecticut**

The champagne has gone warm in my hand, and my face aches from the fake smile I’ve kept plastered on it for the past two hours. My mother darts regularly to my side, probably to make sure I’m not going to scream or faint or otherwise terrify her and embarrass my sister. I’ve told her to stop fretting; I’m fine, and perfectly capable of playing the part that’s expected of me. It’s Phoebe’s night, after all.

My little sister is in her element, and so she should be – it’s rare that a student of the Andorian Academy of Art is invited to hold her own exhibition across three Federation worlds. Tonight is the final showing of her work before the Stowe Gallery closes for Christmas.

It will be our first Christmas without my father.

I shove that thought away along with my half-empty glass, snagging a fresh one from a passing tray. Mom catches sight from across the room and I watch that pinched expression bracket her mouth. I’ve been the catalyst for that expression too many times this past year. I drain my glass, turning away.

“Katie.” My mother’s at my elbow. “Are you all right, sweetheart?”

“God, Mom, stop worrying about me. I’m _fine_.” It comes out more harshly than I’d intended, and I’m instantly sorry as she draws back. “I think I just need some air,” I mumble.

“Get your coat,” she calls after me as I head for the terrace. “It’s freezing out there.”

Wrapped in the Andorian wool coat Phoebe brought back for me, I lean on the terrace railing, watching my breath puff into candy-floss clouds. The constellations gleam like ice particles in a blackened sea. I tip my head back, fixing my gaze on Sirius, the brightest point in the sky. Vertigo warps my perspective and I’m falling upwards, plummeting into an icy ocean, sinking like a crippled shuttle beneath the surface.

Nausea rises in my throat and I gasp, gripping the railing to orient myself. God. It’s bad enough that I can’t snatch a few hours’ sleep without watching that shuttle sink in my dreams; now it’s a waking nightmare as well. I’m shivering from more than the cold as I hurry back inside.

My mother is there, a tall blond boy in tow. “Katie,” she says, her public smile not concealing the ever-present anxiety for me in her eyes. “Do you remember Tom Paris, Owen’s son?”

“Of course.”

He’s taller than I remember, features still boyish but his shoulders broad, his frame filled out a little. I guess he must be about sixteen now, and I can see the brush-strokes of the man he’ll soon become. Lanky, lean-muscled, with the grace of someone easy in his skin, he reminds me, just a little, of his father.

Well, of how his father used to be, before the Cardassians.

“Ensign Kate,” he grins, shaking the hand I’ve held out to him.

“Lieutenant, actually.” I smile back. “How’ve you been, Tom?”

“Oh, you know. Biting the hand that feeds me.”

I glance around. “Speaking of which, are your parents here tonight?”

“No. I’m spending Christmas with relatives. My aunt’s a patron of the gallery, and when I found out there was a Janeway exhibiting tonight, I asked to come.”

“I hope you didn’t think I had anything to do with this. There’s not an artistic bone in my body – Phoebe scooped all the talent in the family.”

He shrugs. “I know nothing about art, but I’ll be sure to tell your sister that her work holds its own against the masters of the Takash period, paying homage to the greats without being hobbled by derivation.”

I raise my eyebrows, and his grin widens. “I read it in the booklet they handed out at the front door.”

I tilt my head to one side, assessing him. He’s grown up a lot in two years, and I don’t just mean physically. When last I saw him he was a sullen teenager, barely hiding the deep-seated, cataclysmic ache of his father’s unmet expectations behind a don’t-care attitude. It’s as if he’s transcended that now. I can’t tell if his ease is born of a new confidence, or if he really has stopped caring what his father thinks of him.

I’m not sure when my mother melted back into the crowd, leaving the two of us alone. Tom has captured my full attention in a way nothing and nobody has since I lost two of the most important people in my universe, and I’ve stopped noticing anybody else in the room. The sheer disloyalty of the thought strikes me dumb, and I grab another glass of champagne as a waiter passes by, gulping at it to mask the emotions I’m afraid are playing out across my face.

“Are you okay?” he asks with quiet intensity, watching me.

It frightens me. Have I been stripped of all my defences, or is he just uncannily perceptive? Either way, I have to escape.

“I’m fine,” I tell him tightly as I start to back away. “I just –” I gesture vaguely, unable to form a complete sentence.

A hand clamps around my upper arm. “ _There_ you are,” Phoebe says dramatically. “Come on, Katie, I’m about to unveil the masterpiece.”

“Phoebe, I can’t – I need a minute -”

She ignores me, tugging me over to a huge silk-draped frame. “I need you with me. Stand right there.” She manoeuvres me beside the painting and claps her hands, calling for attention. Faces turn toward us and I scrape together the tattered fragments of my equilibrium.

I barely hear her as she warbles on about this final piece of her work, the piece she only finished a week ago but talked her director into letting her include in this collection. I hear her voice rise as she reaches the end of her speech and snap back to attention. She puts one hand on my arm and the other reaches for the sheet covering the painting. “May I present my final work, ‘ _Kathryn’_ ,” she announces. A sharp tug, and the silk sheet floats to the floor.

I turn my gaze to the painting, and I can actually feel the blood draining from my face.

I’ve been educated, over the years, in Phoebe’s artistic style. She claims to have been primarily influenced by Earth’s Expressionist period, although her work is less representational. Abstracted or not, I have no trouble identifying myself in the portrait she’s just unveiled. The girl in the painting is all sharp angles and long sad lines, her eyes a dark smudge among the shades of white and eggshell-blue. She’s desolate, lost, broken; a wraith trapped and wandering in a frozen world.

I can’t believe she’s done this to me. Exposed me to the world, bared all my hollowed-out hopes, my raw and bleeding soul.

I place my empty champagne glass carefully on the floor and walk as calmly as I can manage, blinded by tears, through the gallery doors and into the cold and deserted street.

=/\=

“Kate. Kate, wait up!”

It’s too late; my tenuous control has already slipped and the night air is hurling my sobs back into my throat. I quicken my step but his long legs outpace me with ease.

“Your coat.” Tom grasps my hand, tugging me to face him. “You’ll freeze out here.”

He drapes the coat around my shoulders and pulls it closed across my chest, and it’s only now that I realise I’m trembling. I thrust my arms through the sleeves, fasten the coat, shove my hands into the pockets.

“Thanks.” My voice is thick.

He looks carefully at my ruined face. “Want to go for a walk?”

“My mom will be worried –”

“I told her I’d look after you. C’mon, let’s go down to the river.”

Wordlessly, I let him nudge my frozen feet into motion. There’s something safe and uncomplicated about his silence as he ambles beside me, his footfalls almost noiseless, mine a staccato _tick-tock_ against the pavement. The cirrus-clouds of my breath hide the salt-water sliding down my cheeks.

Tom takes my elbow as the ground slants toward the pier. By mutual, silent consent we walk to the end and rest our forearms on the railing. Dark water moves sluggishly, choked with ice. A single loon calls mournfully from across the river, and I wonder why it remained behind when all the others migrated south.

“I was supposed to be getting married tomorrow.”

It’s expelled unbidden from somewhere shrivelled and twisted inside and I instantly want to rip out my own tongue. Tom turns widened blue eyes to me.

“Shit,” he says, “I’m sorry. What happened?”

“He died. Three months ago. Shuttle accident.” Terse, clipped, just the facts. It doesn’t hurt any less, but it makes the telling bearable.

“I thought it was your dad…?” He tails off, probably wondering how he’s managed to blunder into this social minefield.

“Yes. The same crash.”

“I’m really sorry,” he says, softly, and then he does something completely unexpected: he reaches a gloved hand into my pocket and links his fingers with mine. I glance up at his profile. He’s staring out at the black river, giving me the privacy that grief has stripped from me.

“I was injured in the accident.” The sound of my own voice surprises me; I’ve been mute for so long, it seems. “Three weeks at Starfleet Medical. Then I came home to Indiana and spent another two months in bed. My mother called it a convalescence.” My mouth twists. “Phoebe called it self-indulgence.”

“You’re mad at her, huh?”

“Yes.” My voice is shaking. “I’m fully aware that I’m a mess. It’s not her place to share that with the world.”

“I don’t think that’s what she meant to do,” he says carefully. “It’s a beautiful portrait. Maybe it was her way of showing you how much she cares.”

That stops me short. “She could’ve just told me,” I mutter, but it sounds lame even to me and he huffs a gentle laugh, squeezing my fingers in his own.

For a long while the only sound is the slap of small waves against the pier.

“Can I ask you something?” he says tentatively.

“Sure.”

“Can you tell me…” He stops, shakes his head. “Never mind.”

Curious, I angle toward him. “What?”

He’s chewing on his lip. “It’s just – I know you were with my father, on that mission…”

He doesn’t need to specify. I know exactly which mission he’s referring to.

“He was always such an asshole,” Tom bursts out. “Always giving me hell about everything from my grades to who my friends were. My mom said it was because he cared about my future.” He gives a laugh, abbreviated and harsh. “Since he came back, it’s like he doesn’t care about anything. He doesn’t give me shit about schoolwork or coming home late or all the stuff I do that he used to think was a waste of time. He got promoted to Admiral – everything he always wanted – and I could see in his eyes that it didn’t mean anything to him.”

He pulls his hand from mine and grips the railing. “My mom couldn’t take it anymore. She left. I heard her screaming at him – it woke me up, and I went downstairs to see what was going on. She was yelling and he just sat there on the couch, not even looking at her. Then she picked up an overnight bag and walked out.”

“Oh Tom, I’m so sorry.” I lay my hand on his arm. “Is that why you’re here?”

“Yeah. They packed me off for Christmas.” His mouth twists. “I called home earlier today. My sister said they took my dad to Starfleet Medical. To the psych ward.”

I squeeze his arm with frozen fingers. “I’m sorry,” I say again, knowing it’s inadequate. Knowing what he’s going to ask me. Knowing I’ll never be able to tell him what he really wants to know.

“So can you tell me?” he pleads, as I knew he would. “What happened to my dad on that mission?”

I draw in a breath. “How much do you know?”

“Not a lot.” He shakes his head. “Just that you and he were on an away mission and the Cardies captured you.”

I nod, choosing my words carefully. “Most of it is classified, Tom. I wouldn’t be able to tell you even if – even if I wanted to.”

“I understand,” he says, resigned.

“But I’ll tell you this.” I pull my hand back into my pocket, curling my fingers into a fist. My nails dig into my palm, the pain an anchor.

He waits, watching me.

“They tortured him,” I say, my voice soft, even. “I heard them – I could hear him. I was in the next cell.”

 _Cell_. A euphemism for the cramped cage they held me in while they flayed the dignity from my commanding officer. I can still feel the bone-deep chill of lying on packed earth that leached the warmth from my bones, the dull ache of muscles not permitted to flex. The bright agony behind my right eye, legacy of a blow from a Cardassian fist.

I can still feel the hot grip of alien hands as they dragged me from my cage, the rough scrape of the prison wall on my naked back. Camet’s voice, hot and low in my ear, thick fingers crawling over my skin. The jeering laughter of the guards. Closing my eyes, not trying to prevent the thudding of my head against the wall, because the pain of it was my only escape from the other things they were doing to my body.

 _I just knew I wasn’t going to let them hurt you_ , Justin said when I thanked him for rescuing me. And I knew I couldn’t tell him, could never tell him, that they already had.

Starfleet sealed my medical and psychiatric records. If I never wish to speak of it, I’m not obliged, and since my release from mandatory counselling I never have. But I know Owen Paris blames himself for it, and if he’s under psychiatric care, it’s at least partly my fault.

They raped me in the corridor outside his cell, the door wide open so he couldn’t fail to see and hear it through the haze of vicious insult they’d inflicted on him. I cried out to him at first, needing a connection with someone who knew who I was and cared whether I lived or died. I knew he’d held out as long as he could while they carved him up and spat out the masticated pieces of him, playing for time in the hope I’d be spared. But when they came for me, when they violated me in front of him, he curled into a ball and faced away from the door, and that’s when I knew I was alone.

He hasn’t been able to look me in the eye since that day.

“They train us, before we go on potentially dangerous missions, to withstand capture and physical abuse, and to a certain degree they prepare us for mental and emotional torture,” I tell his son. “But nothing can prepare you for being completely broken.”

I can see in Tom’s eyes that he doesn’t really understand. I hope he never will.

“That’s what they did to your father,” I explain. “They broke him down. They tore his defences apart and reshaped him into something less than human. He may never get over it.”

“What about you?” he asks in a near-whisper. “What did they do to you?”

“They used me to break him.”

Of all the things they did to me, that’s the one that still wakes me in the night, speechless and sick with impotent rage.

Oh, I’m not deluded enough to profess that I’ve completely compartmentalised the bodily violence they subjected me to; the very fact that I was intending to marry a man from whom I hid that truth is evidence that I haven’t.

But they robbed me of a man I’d held in esteem almost as high as I did my own father. It’s complicated, the way I feel about Owen Paris. I’m not blind to his flaws. I never have been. It’s not idolisation or gratitude or lust, although I suppose it’s an alchemy of all of those things; where my father filled the role of hero in my life, Captain Paris became something altogether more human, more approachable than that. Admiral Paris, though, is lost to me.

I can’t tell any of this to his sixteen year old son, of course. I couldn’t even if it wasn’t classified.

He’s quiet, perhaps understanding that I can’t say any more, perhaps afraid to ask.

“How did you cope with it?” he asks eventually.

“I talked to a counsellor. And my fiancé helped me a lot. He knew what it was like to be a prisoner in a Cardassian camp.”

He bows his head. “My dad wouldn’t talk to my mom about it. It’s why she left.”

I hesitate, then reach for his hand again. “You need to understand something, Tom. He probably _couldn’t_ talk about it. Not just because it’s classified, but when you love someone, it’s difficult to burden them with knowledge they can’t do anything about.”

“But you told your fiancé.”

I stare down into the river. “Not all of it.”

“Oh,” he says, softly, and I realise from the gentle curling of his fingers over mine that he hears what I’m not saying.

A foghorn calls from downriver and I straighten up, my knees locked from the cold. “We should be heading back.”

“Okay.”

I turn on the uneven planks of the pier and he puts an arm around my waist, steadying me as I waver a little on my stilettoes.

“Thanks.”

He keeps his arm around me as we make our way back uphill to the gallery. I’ve started shivering in earnest and I’m glad of the body heat. At the gallery doors I stop and put my arms around him, pulling him close. “I’m glad you’re here tonight, Tom.”

He hugs me back a little awkwardly. “Yeah. Me too.”

On impulse I lean up to kiss his cheek, and it’s at that precise moment that he turns his head and our lips meet instead. I see the surprise in his eyes, feel his arms go slack around me. His lips are warm, pressed lightly against mine. I pull back more slowly than I should, blinking.

He steps back from me, looks down at his feet. “That was, uh – I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be.” I can’t help touching my fingertips to my lips. I should be confused. I should feel guilty.

Tom clears his throat and steps around me, pushing open the door, and I duck under his arm into the foyer.

My sister hovers in the archway between the foyer and the main gallery. She hurries over to me and Tom slips past us, glancing back at me once before he moves behind a group of people and I lose sight of him.

“I’m so sorry, Katie.” Phoebe’s grey eyes are bright with tears. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“I know.”

I clasp her hand and tug her with me across the room. We stand before the painting and I look at it, really taking it in. She’s made me stark and pure and tragic. She’s made me noble. It’s not a violation at all; it’s a tribute.

Tom was right. It’s beautiful.

I put my arm around my sister’s shoulders and hug her tightly against me. My mother comes up on my other side, her thin arm winding around my waist, and I rest my head on her shoulder.

Inside my cracked and frozen heart, a delicate tendril of warmth takes root.


	4. The Golden Bird

**September, 2362 – Starfleet Academy, San Francisco**

“You’d think after four years’ practice you’d be able to handle your drink, Charlie.” I slap my inebriated friend on the back and he almost slides off his bar stool.

It’s true. We’ve been sneaking off to parties together since we were fourteen, raiding our parents’ drinks cabinets, tinkering with the replicator to coax it into providing us with real scotch or bourbon instead of synthehol. It doesn’t seem to matter. Three or four drinks, and invariably I end up half-dragging, half-carrying Charlie home.

At least I talked him into changing out of his uniform before we hit the bars tonight. Nothing says “on report” like a cadet busted drinking in his first week of classes. Although since he’ll most likely be reporting tomorrow morning with a thumping hangover and vomit on his shoes, I’m guessing Cadet Charlie Day isn’t going to be impressing any lecturers in a hurry.

Or any ladies. At least, not tonight.

“Come on.” I loop an arm under Charlie’s shoulders and haul him upright. I’m glad I gave in to his insistence that we stay on campus for tonight’s bar crawl – he claimed it increased the pool of nubile female cadets, although I’d argued we should go further afield and see what the rest of San Francisco has to offer – at least now I don’t have to drag him far before I can deposit him on his bunk to sleep it off.

“I love you, man,” Charlie slurs as I key in the code to our shared quarters. “You’re my buddy.”

“Yeah, yeah, I love you too.” I yank off his shoes, turn him on his side and place an empty bucket beside his bunk. “Sleep it off, okay?”

Then I’m at a loss. I could make some more headway on the required class reading, but with the extra tutoring my father’s been making me take since I was in short pants, I’m already ahead of most of my classmates. And I’m not in the mood to study. Restless, I wander around the claustrophobic room. Charlie’s already snoring and the noise is starting to grate.

Ducking into the tiny ‘fresher, I shove a hand through my hair to mess up the regulation short-back-and-sides; I figured out years ago that girls like the tousled look. I check my reflection: jeans, boots, T-shirt. Presentable enough to get me into the kind of bars I’m planning to visit tonight, and with any luck, into someone’s panties. I shove a new credit chip into my pocket and let the door slide shut behind me.

=/\=

The band is really pitiful in this place; I’m no musician, but even I can tell when the drummer can’t keep time and the sax player hits a bum note every second bar. But by far the worst thing about them is the lead singer, who’s yowling like a feral cat trapped in a box. Cringing, I turn on my stool, trying to catch a glimpse of her. When I do, the first thing I think is that she looks a damn sight better than she sounds.

Then I realise who she is, and I can’t stop laughing.

She recognises me as she’s halfway through murdering the second chorus and falters, almost sending the entire place into aural collapse as she valiantly tries to make up for it. My stomach hurts from laughing. I raise my beer to her in a salute, and she puts her hands on her hips and glares. Somehow, it’s not quite as intimidating as the first time I saw it.

Thankfully, at the end of the song she clips the mic carefully back into its stand and jumps down from the stage, pushing through the crowd toward the bar. Before she can speak, I signal the bartender. “Whatever the songbird is having is on me.”

Flustered, she asks for a scotch on the rocks, slams it down and gestures for another one before she finally turns to face me. “It was a dare, all right?” she tells me defiantly, pointing her chin toward a booth in the corner where three or four of her so-called friends are still doubled over with glee.

“Free tip, Ensign Kate: next time, opt for truth.”

She tries to look offended but can’t help snickering. “It’s Lieutenant Commander Kate, thank you very much.”

“Aren’t we coming up in the world?”

She downs her second scotch and balances on a stool, assessing me. “So it would seem, Tom. Aren’t you a little young to be cruising bars on your own?”

“Not that young,” I answer. “And I’m not on my own. Not anymore, anyway.”

Her answering smile is slow and curls provocatively to one side. “So I’m not going to be hauled away in irons if I buy you a drink?”

“I’m of legal age, Lieutenant Commander.” I grin back at her, then let my gaze do a slow sweep over her body, lingering on the places where the fabric of her dress dips and stretches. I’m not sure she’s entirely unconscious of the fact that she straightens on her stool, arching her back ever so slightly.

“Of course,” she murmurs, watching me, “there are several other very good reasons why I should walk away right now.”

“Such as?”

She gives me an even look. “Such as the fact that if you’re here, in San Francisco, _of legal age_ as you put it, chances are good that you’re enrolled at Starfleet Academy. And while any other freshman cadet might get away with claiming ignorance of Starfleet’s fraternisation policies, as the son of an admiral I know you’re well aware that a lieutenant commander who associates with a cadet is opening herself up to all kinds of uncomfortable accusations.”

“What association?” I counter. “We’re just having a drink.”

She observes me for a moment longer, then turns, nodding to the bartender. “Just a drink, then, Tom.”

=/\=

“… And then Lieutenant Graves materialised in front of Captain Shurn, naked as a jaybird with his face painted blue, stammering about Ensign Taria sending him the wrong transport coordinates for their tryst, and the captain said – the captain said …” Kate breaks off into husky giggles, then purses her lips, holds her fingers up above her head and wiggles them like Andorian antennae. Deepening her voice, she intones, “Mr Graves, I believe you’ve been the victim of a practical joke. For future reference, I suggest you study scientific texts if you wish to familiarise yourself with Andorian mating rituals, rather than relying on dubious holo-programs…”

She dissolves again, almost falling out of the booth, her laughter infectious. When we finally straighten up, wiping the tears away, I realise that at some point one or both of us has shifted even closer in the confines of the booth. Her bare thigh is pressed against mine, and as she leans forward to pick her glass up from the table, her shoulder brushes my chest. I rest my arm along the cracked leather behind her so that when she leans back, it encircles her shoulders. She wiggles a little in her seat, the side of her body against mine.

I wonder if she’s doing it on purpose.

Her friends left hours ago, drifting away from the booth Kate invited me into, as the table grew sticky with spilled drinks and the minutes liquefied past midnight. I expected her to leave as well. But she stayed, wedged firmly into the booth beside me, and ordered another bottle of scotch.

Actually, we haven’t been drinking all that much. She’s been telling me stories of deep space and away missions and the pranks she and her shipmates pull when they’re bored, and I’ve been busy listening to her low, husky voice and watching the way her dress clings to her body as she gestures and moves in her seat.

And besides, if tonight goes the way I’m starting to dare hope it will, I don’t intend to be drunk.

The terrible band strikes up a slow number, and Kate slips out of the booth, grabbing my hand. “C’mon,” she says. “Maybe they’ll sound better if we’re dancing.”

They don’t, but everything _feels_ better. Her small hands on my chest, mine on her hips, her slim body brushing mine as we move. The hard-on I’ve been trying to tame for the last three hours swells to almost painful proportions. For a moment I’m embarrassed, because what if I’m misreading this? But then she slides her hands up around my neck and sways into me, giving me the most incredible view down her cleavage, and I decide to just go with it. What’s the worst that can happen?

I pull her closer, one hand moving up over her waist, my thumb resting against the side of her breast. I hold my breath, but she doesn’t back away. In fact, I could swear she turns slightly into my touch. I press my face into her sweet-smelling hair.

“Have I told you how good you look in that dress?”

She glances up at me with that half-smile. “Are you trying to seduce me, Cadet Paris?”

I’m not imagining the invitation in her voice. I’m not.

I let my other hand drift a little further south, my fingers tracing the outline of her ass in that spectacularly short dress. “Is it working?”

Her lashes are lowered and I can’t see her eyes. I see her draw in a breath to speak, but before she does, the cacophony of so-called musicians reaches a feedback loop and then falls completely silent.

Into the vacuum, the lead singer bellows unnecessarily into the microphone that it’s closing time, and I raise my head and realise all the tables have been wiped and the bartender is polishing glasses. We’re almost the last ones here.

She steps out of my arms. “I guess we’re being kicked out.”

“Hey, Red,” the sax player calls, and she turns her head inquiringly. “Any time you want to sing with us again, just say the word.”

“Is he deaf?” I mutter disbelievingly.

Kate turns to glare at me and mock-punches my shoulder. “Be careful, Tom, or you’ll never get the chance to find out just what other talents I can demonstrate with my lips.”

The way she licks the lips in question, I’m left in no doubt that she’s not talking about kissing.

“Why, Lieutenant Commander,” I can’t help the stupid wide grin that’s breaking out over my face, “are you telling me you have a dirty mouth?”

She gives me that slow, curling smile. “Oh, Cadet, you have no idea.”

“Show me.”

 _Challenge accepted_ , I read in her eyes, and she says, “Come with me.”

=/\=

Christ in heaven, I can’t believe this is happening to me.

She’s on her knees, small body snug between my spread legs. Her dress, half-unzipped, has slipped off her shoulder and I can just see the taut bud of one nipple peeking over the top. Her glorious hair is spread over my naked thighs, and her mouth is wrapped around my cock, sucking deep and slow, her cheeks hollowing as she pulls up to curl her tongue around the head, red lips stretching as she sinks down until I’m balls-deep in her throat. It’s all I can do not to give into the explosion building inside me, but I desperately want to make this last.

Tonight is turning out better than my wildest dreams.

I slide my fingers down the undulating muscles of her throat, over her collarbone until I can cup her breast in my hand, and she moans, the sound vibrating around my rigid penis.

That’s all it takes.

“Kate,” I gasp, warning her, and she pulls back until the head of my cock rests on her tongue, her fingers wrapped around the base. It feels like a fountain’s gushing out of me. She swallows it down, licking her lips to catch the last drops, and I think I fall a little bit in love. No other girl I’ve been with ever did _that_.

She rests her pointed chin on my thigh and smirks up at me. “Now, what was that you were saying about my mouth?”

I’m too busy breathing to speak.

She gets to her feet, ambles into her kitchen, comes out with two glasses of water and hands me one, sitting beside me. I watch the muscles move in her throat as she drinks, and I reach up and stroke the pale skin. She puts down her glass and smiles at me. “That was fun.”

And that sounds a little … final. “You’re not kicking me out, are you?”

She gives me wide eyes. “Only if you’re done.”

Done? Is she kidding? My cock’s already twitching again; glancing down, she notices and hides a smile.

“Well,” she murmurs, “in that case, I think I might be overdressed,” and she glides to her feet, her back to me, slowly inching the zipper on her dress all the way down. She shrugs a little and the dress whispers to the floor, and she’s standing there in her panties and high heels, her head turned toward me over one shoulder. The next thing I know I’m pressed up against her back with my mouth fastened onto her neck and my hands cupping her bare breasts. She gives a breathy little moan and arches her neck, and I start shuffling us forward. “Where’s your bedroom?” I mumble into her skin.

“That way,” she gestures vaguely, her eyes closed, so I swing her up into my arms and head for the nearest closed door.

=/\=

Her chin is resting on my chest, her eyes heavy-lidded, soft sounds of pleasure coming from her throat as my fingers draw lazy circles on her bare back. I’m boneless and drifting in that hazy state of post-coital satisfaction. The sheets are pulled up to our hips, the blankets on the floor along with the clothes that didn’t get discarded in the living area.

She wasn’t shy in showing me what she likes. She let me scoop her up and carry her into the bedroom, but the moment I laid her down on her bed, she took charge. She pushed me onto my back and straddled me, leaning in to kiss me, her hair falling onto my chest as she took my hands and put them on her breasts. As soon as I started pinching and rubbing her nipples she sat upright and started circling her hips against me, coating my hardened cock in her slick moisture. She took one of my hands and guided it downward, curling my fingers inside her and pushing my thumb against her clit. The little moans and sighs she was making, the way she was biting her lip as I touched her – all I wanted was to be inside her. I remember pleading, practically begging as she reached back and stroked me, but it wasn’t until I felt her start to quiver and clench that she curved her hips back and pulled me into her. And it was over sooner than I wanted, but when I finished, I flipped her onto her back and buried my face between her legs, lapping at her until she shrieked and arched her hips off the bed.

Remembering it is making me get hard again; she feels it and shifts her thigh over me, chuckling. “I’d forgotten what it’s like to be with an eighteen year old.”

“You’re used to older men, huh?” I mean it to sound teasing, but maybe she hears an edge I didn’t intend, because she stiffens slightly.

“I wouldn’t say I’m used to anything in particular,” she says coolly.

I don’t know how to respond to that, so I say I’m sorry, though I don’t know what I’m apologising for.

Then I remember her dead fiancé, and the Cardassians, and I want to kick the shit out of myself.

“Fuck,” I mutter. “I’m sorry, Kate, I didn’t think. I’m an idiot.”

She gives me a questioning look, and I wave my hand helplessly. Talk about killing the mood.

“I wasn’t thinking about what you’ve been through.”

“I try not to think about it, either,” she says softly. She turns her head away, but instead of getting out of bed and kicking me out, as I’m half expecting, she rests her cheek on my chest. “Most of the time I don’t think about it. I’ve been told I’m quite gifted at the art of denial.”

“Your sister?”

“Among others.” She looks up at me again. “Your father, for one.”

“I didn’t know you were still in touch.”

It really surprises me. After my dad’s stint in the psych ward, he and my mom patched it up. Things at home have changed a little. My dad’s still an asshole and my mom’s still neurotic, but they’re not focusing it all on my sisters and me anymore. I guess their relationship therapist told them they should concentrate on fixing the problems in their marriage instead of channelling it all into their kids.

What I do know is that they talk a lot more about my father’s work. There’s probably still classified stuff he’s not allowed to tell her, but she always seems to know the details of whatever project he has on the go. Before the Cardassians, she never gave a shit; the only thing she cared about was who he was working with and how important they were.

Or how nubile they were. You can bet Kate Janeway’s name came up a few times over the years. Not lately, though. I assumed she wasn’t in the picture, but maybe I was wrong.

Maybe my father doesn’t tell my mother as much as I thought he did.

“We aren’t, really,” she answers me, carefully. “His counsellor arranged for me to attend one of his sessions. Apparently it was recommended that he … face certain things … as part of the healing process.”

“Oh,” I say, then, curiously, “and did he?”

Something passes through the depths of her eyes. “In a manner of speaking.”

I wonder what else the bastard said to her in that counselling session.

Then I wonder what he said to her when the session was over.

Then I wonder if they did more than talking.

Holy shit. She’s still looking somewhere past me, her eyes unreadable, but I know in my bones that the crazy, unfettered connection my brain just served up is the truth. Holy _shit_.

I don’t even know why, but I’m suddenly sick with anger. Is tonight some kind of payback for her? Or – worse – something to hold on to?

I’m struggling to keep my voice calm as I ask her, “Why did you take me home tonight?”

She turns her head to me sharply, her eyes searching mine, then sits up, pulling me with her. “Because I wanted you,” she says, emphatically. “You, Tom. I wanted _you_.”

And just like that, all the anger, the jealousy, it all goes away. I reach for her, wanting to kiss her, but she places a finger over my lips.

“This can’t happen again, though,” she says. “Aside from the complications it would cause, I’m breaking regulations. I could be up on charges.”

“I understand that.” I wrap my fingers around hers. “You can trust me, Kate.”

She smiles, her shoulders relaxing. Then she angles her chin down and gives me a look from under her lashes.

“So, since we’re in agreement that this is a one-time deal,” she purrs, “we should really make the most of it, don’t you think?”

As I lean in to kiss her, my brain is not the only part of my body that wholeheartedly agrees.

=/\=

The sun is rising behind me as I skirt the Academy grounds, slipping through the checkpoint and into the cadets’ quarters. I press my thumb to the doorpad and step through quietly, hoping not to wake Charlie.

He’s already up, slouched at the table with his head in his hands, steam rising from a cup of coffee. His eyes are bleary as he looks up to greet me. He takes one look at my shit-eating grin and says wryly, “Well, hail the conquering hero. So who was she?”

I order my own coffee from the replicator and slide into the chair opposite. “A gentleman never tells.”

“You have a charmed life, Paris,” he mutters good-naturedly. “You are one lucky, lucky son of a bitch.”

 _Don’t fuck it up, Thomas_ , my father says in my head, but for once in my life I’m not listening.


	5. The Good-For-Nothing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Re _Pathways_ , I completely denounce the Caldik Prime part of its Tom Paris backstory, partly because it conflicts with what’s been said on the TV show ( _Pathways_ claims the incident occurred when he was a cadet, but in _Non Sequitur_ , it’s implied that Tom graduated from the Academy and was posted to the Exeter before Caldik Prime), and partly because it sucks.
> 
>  **Warning** : Dubious consent, public lewdness and really filthy sex. I’m not kidding.

**February, 2369 – Le Vilain, Marseille**  
  
It’s only after Lieutenant Collins and Commander Bhakra have called it a night and I’m sitting alone on the bar stool, my elbow sunk into a pool of spilled alcohol, that I realise just how seedy this place really is. My head’s light from the fourth (fifth? sixth?) shot of tequila, I’ve long since lost the battle to keep my skirt from riding up my thighs, and I’ve just started to get a little concerned about my ability to report for duty on time and sober tomorrow. Mark’s expecting my call later tonight, expecting an answer, and I have no idea what to tell him. I start to slip off the stool, wondering where I left my coat, trying to remember how to get back to my hotel.

Of course, that’s when I see him.

He’s slouched at the other end of the bar, hunched over in jeans and a leather jacket, blond hair scruffy and well past regulation length. There are three empty shot glasses in front of him and as the bartender places a fresh one on the bar, he reaches out automatically and tosses it down his throat. From the blank look on his face and the way the rotgut doesn’t seem to faze him, I’d guess that drinking alone in sleazy bars is nothing new to Tom Paris.

Considering the turn his life has taken in the past year or so, that doesn’t really surprise me. And my life is complicated enough without dealing with a fallen-angel incarnation of my longtime mentor’s son tonight. I turn to leave, but something about the beaten cast to his bearing and the glassy sheen in his eyes points my feet in his direction instead.

“Buy a girl a drink?” I say lightly, sliding onto the stool beside him.

At first I think he hasn’t heard me, but finally his head swings in my direction. His eyes are vacant as he sweeps his gaze over my body, leisurely, insolently, neck to toe and back again. It’s only when he finally focuses on my face that I see a flicker of life in those dull blue eyes.

“Fuck,” he says. “It’s you.”

“Hi,” I answer, and then I have no idea what to say.

_How are you? What’ve you been doing? How’s your dad?_

I don’t think so.

He angles his body toward me now, thighs sprawled wide and bracketing my legs. “A drink it is,” he drawls. “You’re buying, though. I’m broke.”

I wave the bartender over and he deposits two shot glasses of whatever Tom’s been drinking before us. “Salut,” I say, and Tom clinks his glass with mine. The rotgut burns my throat and I swallow hard, trying not to cough as tears fill my eyes. Tom laughs and reaches out to wipe a thumb below my eye; his touch is surprisingly gentle and I find myself leaning into it a little. He lets his thumb rest on my cheekbone for a moment then draws back.

“So, what’s the always classy Commander Janeway doing in this not-so-fine establishment,” he grins, and his gaze runs over me again, “dressed to thrill?”

I can’t help flushing. “Just out with some shipmates. My security officer raved about one of the local restaurants, and we went out for a few drinks after dinner.”

“And you ended up here?” He glances around the bar in amusement. “Not your usual scene, I’d have thought.”

“How would you know what my usual scene is?” I rejoin defensively. “I haven’t seen you in, what, six years?”

“Yeah, about six years.” He leans in closer, his voice silky. “But I remember it like it was yesterday.”

Now I really am blushing. I look around for the bartender so I won’t have to meet his eye. Then I feel his hand on my knee, his fingers caressing my thigh, and my gaze snaps up to his.

“Something tells me you haven’t changed all that much,” he murmurs as his hand slides up under my dress.

I gasp and squeeze my thighs together, trapping his hand. “What the hell are you doing?”

Tom’s grin broadens. “Testing a theory,” he answers. He pushes my knees apart and I feel his fingers stroking the silk of my panties. Despite myself, a rush of heat arrows straight to that part of me and I know if he keeps this up he’s going to feel how wet I’m getting. Long fingers curl relentlessly inside my panties and my thighs open further of their own accord.

There’s a shout of laughter from a table on the other side of the bar and I snap back to reality fast, pushing his hand away and crossing my legs. God, what am I doing? This is a public bar, and we’re hardly tucked away in a corner. Anyone could have seen us.

I signal desperately for the bartender.

The next shot goes down a little easier and my head swims lazily. Tom shifts his stool closer and leans his elbow on the bar, his face very close to mine. “So tell me, Commander,” he murmurs, “what are you _really_ doing here?”

“I told you – after-dinner drinks …”

“All alone and in that very fine dress?”

I glance down at the dress in question, wondering – not for the first time – what possessed me to wear it. It’s strappy and short and tight as a tourniquet, and it leaves next to nothing to the imagination. Collins’ eyes nearly bulged out of his head when I took my coat off at the restaurant; I wonder if he’ll ever be able to look at me in uniform again without picturing me in this. And right now I don’t care. I want to believe I’m not just the poised ‘fleeter in uniform, the part I’ve been playing for years now. I need to feel wanton and dangerous for a while. I need to feel free.

I guess that’s why, when I feel Tom’s fingers on my knee again, I uncross my legs and slide a little closer.

=/\=

His lips are on my throat, one hand curved possessively over my ass as the other smooths its way up the inside of my thigh. My eyes are closed, both to block out the sight of the bar and its patrons around us and to slow the spinning of my head. His fingers follow the edge of my now-soaked panties and slip inside and I moan, louder than I’d intended. I feel Tom’s mouth curve against my collarbone. “I was right,” he murmurs against my ear. “Some things don’t change.”

I open my eyes and realise the bartender is standing right in front of us, cleaning glasses as he watches us. He grins at me.

“Tom!” I shove at his shoulder, pulling his hand out from between my legs.

He lifts his head, looking mildly annoyed, sees the bartender standing close by and instantly slides off his stool, pulling me close. “Excuse us,” he says airily as he guides me to the exit with a hand on my back.

I snag my coat from a hook near the door. Outside it’s freezing, a dank fog rolling in from the harbour, and I start to shiver. “Where are we going?”

He grabs my elbow and manhandles me into an alley half a block down from the bar. “This’ll do.”

It’s not even midnight, and despite the cold there are plenty of people in the street. The alley is dimly lit but hardly secluded, and if he thinks we’re doing this here …

“You have to be kidding me –”

He shuts me up with an open-mouthed lick across my lips as he pushes me up against the brick alley wall, and I’m so shocked I can’t even stammer. His tongue is in my mouth, his hands are on my breasts, his leg pushing between my thighs, and I’m _furious_. I flatten my hands on his chest and shove. He stumbles back a step. We stare at each other, breathing hard.

Then his shoulders slump and he rubs a hand across his eyes like a tired child. “I’m sorry. I was way out of line.”

Maybe it’s the aura of defeat that smothers him like a blanket, maybe it’s because I’m drunk, but I want to reach him, find the remnants of the boy I used to know.

“What’s going on, Tom?”

He laughs without humour. “Trust me, it’s a long and boring story, Kate. You don’t want to know the half of it.”

Nobody has called me Kate in years, and it brings unexpected tears to my eyes; there are times I think she’s gone forever. Without hesitation, I curl my fingers into his shirt and pull him into my arms, wrapping myself around him. He’s resistant at first, but I tighten my grip and with a shudder all the tension goes out of his limbs and he’s clutching at me like I’m the only thing holding him up. He buries his face in my hair.

“It’s okay,” I whisper to him, stroking the back of his neck. “It’s okay.”

His hands come up to my face and he kisses me, his mouth moving gently over mine, and I start trembling with the startling tenderness of it. “I need you,” he says against my lips, and I stop caring that a few minutes ago I didn’t want him touching me, that we’re in a dirty public alley and there are people around and it’s bitterly cold. He needs me, and more than anything I want to give him what he needs.

And, if I’m honest, take what _I_ need.

I take his hands from where they cradle my face and pull them down onto my body, kissing him back fiercely.

He needs no further invitation. His lips scorch a trail down my sternum as he yanks at the low neckline of my dress until the thin strap breaks, exposing me to him. I feel him squeeze my breast and take my nipple in his teeth, his hot mouth a stark contrast to the icy air, and I grab his other hand and drag it up under my short skirt. I fumble with the buttons of his jeans, my hips arching forward as he fingers me roughly, deliciously. Then I have his cock out and he takes his hands from my body and presses implacably downward on my shoulder. I stumble to my knees, grazing them on the rough ground, and he grips my chin in one hand and his erection in the other, pushing it past my lips against the last shreds of my resistance.

He works himself into my mouth and I angle my neck sharply to take him in, relaxing the muscles of my throat. His hands are wound tightly, almost painfully into my hair as he begins to thrust; I dig my fingers into his hips to control his movements and he backs off a little. I make a grateful sound in my throat. He groans at the vibrations, letting go of my hair with one hand and reaching downward to pinch my exposed nipple. It makes me twitch and whimper around him and he hisses, fucking my mouth harder. I let him thrust into my throat, taking him deeper, until he begins to use his grip on my hair to control the movement. I can’t get enough air. I shove the flat of my hand against his hip in protest, scraping my teeth against him, and he yelps and pulls out, his hand still twisted in my hair.

“Jesus!” I hiss as tears of pain prickle my eyes. “Take it easy, okay?”

He loosens his fingers from my hair and strokes it in apology, then helps me to my feet, dipping his head to kiss me again. I’m so unsettled by the sweetness of his kisses compared to his ungentle handling of my body that I let him kiss me, leaning into him as his tongue strokes inside my mouth.

“Let me make it up to you,” he promises as his mouth moves down my neck. He touches me softly now, carefully, fingertips skating over my breasts and ribs as he sinks to his knees. He moves my legs apart and pushes my panties aside, licking up into me. I twitch and gasp, falling back against the wall as two long fingers slide into me, curling deliciously as he laps and sucks at my clitoris. The unmistakable ache of my impending climax begins to gather strength and I start to shake, biting my lip to stifle the sounds I’m making. He wraps his lips around my clit and swirls his tongue and my breath comes out on a shuddering moan as heat licks through me. Only his hands on my thighs hold me upright as the force of my orgasm bows my body against him.

Tom gets to his feet and wipes a hand across his mouth, grinning. “Good?”

I can only nod; I’m still catching my breath.

He pulls me close for a lingering kiss. “Want more?”

“God, yes. But not here.”

He steps back and grabs my hand. “My place is just around the corner.”

My mouth falls open in shock and I punch him on the shoulder, hard. “And you wanted to fuck me in an alley?”

He laughs, unrepentant, and drags me out into the street before I can tug my skirt down to a respectable length or button my coat to hide my exposed flesh. “Come on,” he says. “If you liked that, you’re gonna love what I plan to do to you next.”

=/\=

Bent over the back of the couch with my face shoved into a cushion, my cuffed hands outstretched and my tiptoes barely touching the floor, for the first time tonight I feel a cool trickle of fear. His hand splays flat between my shoulderblades, holding me down. He’s so strong, and he’s fucking me so hard the couch scrapes a couple of inches across the floorboards with every thrust, and I know tomorrow there’ll be a bruise across my hips and lower belly where the couch frame is digging into them.

I have absolutely no control here. And yet protesting, stopping him, is the last thing on my mind, because his cock is so thick and so long and so talented and he’s using it to penetrate so deep inside me that all I can do is moan.

His fingers press into my mouth and I open my lips to suck them in greedily, scraping my teeth along them, hearing him hiss. He pulls them away and I feel them, wet and insistent, between the cheeks of my ass. He works one long finger slightly into my ass and I groan and buck helplessly upward. He takes that, correctly, for assent, pushing in further, his other hand moving to curl around the front of my thigh and pinch my clit. He twists his finger in counterpoint to the rhythm his cock is pounding inside me, and I scream, long and loud, shaking violently with the force of my climax.

He lets me ride through it, and when I collapse, trembling, over the couch, he pulls out of me and rubs the head of his cock against me from my clit to my ass. I can’t help pressing back against him a little and moaning. He rests the head of his cock against the small opening and pushes just a little, wringing a gasp from me.

“Yes?” he asks, leaning forward to bite lightly at the nape of my neck.

I’ve never done this before. Mark wants to, but I’ve always shied away from the idea. Now, in this sordid hotel room with this disreputable man, I can’t think of anything I want more.

“Please,” I whisper.

He pulls back. “If we’re gonna do this, we’re doing it right. Don’t move.”

I feel his absence, hear him fumbling for something, and I get a sudden mental flash of the way I must look: sprawled naked and sweaty over the back of the couch, my legs spread and my backside in the air. Then he’s back, his fingers coated in some kind of cool gel and sliding slowly into my ass, and I couldn’t care less what I look like. I raise my hips, whimpering and wanting more, and he scissors two fingers inside me, stretching me carefully. “Does that feel good?” he whispers, his lips against my ear, and I can’t help the low groan that escapes me.

“I think you’re ready,” he murmurs when my moans have started hitching like sobs, and he replaces his fingers with his penis, inching inside me so slowly that my fingers curl into the cushions. When he’s buried inside me as far as he can go, he stills, his hand flat on the base of my back. “Okay?” he asks.

“God, yes.” My voice is rough.

“We’ll take it slow,” he murmurs, and he draws out smoothly and then pushes back in, and again, making me groan and catch my breath.

The pain-pleasure is exquisite. I feel like I’m losing my mind.

I feel his breath hot on my ear as he leans over me and growls, “I’m going to fuck you now, Kate. I’m going to fuck your tight little ass until you can’t walk. Are you ready?”

I can’t speak. I can only nod. I feel his hands move to my hips as he thrusts a little deeper, a little harder. I start to whimper and push back into him, and he groans and grips my hips, pulling and pushing me against him. He’s driving into me now, fast and rough, and I feel the coiled tension building inside me and know I’m going to come harder than I’ve ever come before. He tweaks my clit just as he grinds his hips a little and I buck and shriek, my whole body writhing and clenching, and I hear him shout something unintelligible as he spills himself into me, his body falling forward over my back.

We lie there panting as the sweat cools on our skin, and then he shifts and slips out of me. He pushes himself upright, carelessly using a flat hand on my back for leverage, and the casual disinterest in that motion makes my stomach clench.

The sex tonight has been desperate, degenerate, but until this moment I always felt like I was present; like _we_ were present. But the way he uses me to straighten up as if I’m a handy piece of furniture, the sheer lack of concern for _me_ , the woman whose body he just turned into jelly, makes me want to get the hell out of this room, _right now_.

I stand on trembling legs, holding my cuffed hands out. “Take these things off me,” I demand, and he looks around in mild surprise as if he’s already forgotten I’m here.

He fishes the key out of his back pocket and ambles over, half-naked and unapologetic, spent penis hanging out of the open fly of the jeans he never bothered to take off.

He unlocks the cuffs while I avoid his eye. I shimmy into my indecent dress, holding the torn pieces of bodice together in one hand, shove my feet into the torturous shoes, shrug on my coat. I can’t find my panties.

Tom slouches against the doorframe as I try to move past him. “Leaving so soon?” he murmurs, sliding a hand inside my coat to encircle my waist. I stiffen as he pulls me against him.

“I have to go.”

He pulls his arm away. “Yeah,” he says without inflection. “Things to do, huh.”

I push open the door and step over the threshold, relief already quickening my step, but something makes me look back at him. He’s watching me, and there’s an expression on his face that’s both bitter and desolate, like something vital in him left a long time ago and he’s given up hope of ever getting it back. I almost stop – almost turn back to him – but then the look is gone, his face smoothed out, and I hesitate for just an instant before I flee.

I make it back to my hotel room, strip, step straight into a hot-water shower. I sponge away the sweat and semen and lean against the shower wall. I’m sore – I’ll probably be sore for days – in places both familiar and unfamiliar. My knees are scraped and there are darkening finger-shaped bruises on my wrists, my hips and thighs. I’ll have to use a dermal regenerator before I can let Mark make love to me again.

I’ve missed Mark’s comm call. Curled up in an armchair, wrapped in a hotel robe with my fingers linked around a steaming cup of coffee, I replay his message. His hair is a little mussed as though he’s been raking his fingers through it. He looks tense, which is no surprise considering the way I reacted this morning when he proposed.

_Hey, Kath. I hope you’re having a nice night with your friends. Your sister called about the party this weekend. I was kind of hoping we could make an announcement then._

He pauses, scratching nervously at the back of his head. _I don’t mean to pressure you. I just – I love you, and I can’t imagine being with anyone else, ever_.

Another pause.

 _I miss you. Call me when you get in_.

The screen blanks off, and I stare at it, unfocused.

I’m not stupid. I know what tonight was about. My last-ditch rebellion before I settle into the life that’s always been expected of me – stable marriage, a couple of kids, a commendable career, an admiralty in my future. The perfect Starfleet life, for the woman from a perfect Starfleet lineage. I guess I’ve always known deep down what I’m destined for, no matter how hard I try to pretend I’m a rebel.

And I do love him. I do. He’s good for me. I can recognise that, despite my attraction to men who aren’t.

I pull the vidscreen toward me and tap in Mark’s number.

I’m going to say yes. I’m going to marry him. And I’m going to hope I never see Tom Paris again.

I wonder why I feel less guilty for so thoroughly betraying the man who loves me than I do for running out on the man who said he needs me.


	6. The Captain

**April, 2371 - Federation Penal Settlement, Auckland**  
  
“Tom Paris?”

I turn, and almost fall over.

“Kathryn Janeway,” she says. “I served with your father on the Al-Batani. I wonder if we could go somewhere and talk?”

Is she serious? The last time I saw her I had her handcuffed and bent over the back of the couch in a filthy hotel room, and she’s introducing herself like we’ve never even met? I realise I’m gaping, and shut my mouth with a snap. “About what?” I manage.

“About a job we’d like you to do for us.” She’s got her hands clasped behind her back, her hair pinned up in a bun that’s just begging for me to shove my hands into it. Her face is perfectly impassive. But then I look into her eyes.

She knows damn well I know who she is, and she doesn’t want me to let on.

We’re being observed.

“I’m already doing a job for the Federation.”

“I've been told the Rehab Commission is very pleased with your work. They've given me their approval to discuss this matter with you.”

I stand slowly, looking down at her. “Well then, I guess I’m yours.”

The silky undertone in my voice is intended for our eavesdroppers. At least, that’s what I tell myself. I choose to ignore the fact that these days even when I tell the truth it sounds like a lie.

She stiffens ever so slightly and turns, not bothering to check if I’m following. As if there’d ever be any doubt. She starts talking, and I’m barely listening, too busy staring at her slender shoulders and her firm jaw and the captain’s pips on her collar. Fuck, she’s beautiful. I want to rip off those pips with my teeth and –

“- we’d like you to come along.”

What?

“You’d like me to lead you to my former colleagues?” I stop and face her. “I was only with the Maquis a few weeks before I was captured, Captain. I don't know where most of their hiding places are.”

She says she’s looking for a spy Starfleet stuck on Chakotay’s ship, and she wants me to help her track them down. Jesus, the irony of proving that asshole right about me. “What’s in it for me?” I ask her.

She says something vague about talking me up at my next parole hearing. Seriously? I’ve served eighteen months of a two year sentence and I’m keeping my nose clean. I’ll be out of here in no time – I don’t need her help. And she knows that as well as I do.

So what’s her game here?

I realise I want to find out.

She tells me I’ll be an observer and I make the expected protest about my unparalleled piloting skills, and then she says, “When it’s over, you’re cut loose,” and flicks me a glance. It takes me a moment to realise what she’s giving me. What she’s risking for me.

“Story of my life,” I answer automatically, hoping like hell that whoever’s watching us is convinced. Because I might be out of Federation rehab in a few months’ time, but I’ll never really be out of prison.

=/\=

The ship is still on full alert by the time I stagger back to my quarters, exhausted, grimy and shell-shocked. We managed to put some distance between us and the Kazon before Lieutenant Carey insisted we drop to impulse until he could be certain the magnetic constrictors weren’t going to fail again. I put Voyager into standard orbit around some Class L planet, ringed by an asteroid belt with a high concentration of ion radiation that Harry said would hide us from the Kazon’s sensors, handed the conn to Ensign Jenkins and went to work on the damaged navigational array. Seven hours later, Tuvok reminds me that I’ve been on my feet for thirty hours straight and orders me to bed.

I stumble into the sonic shower, barely keeping my feet. My eyes are already closing when I fall onto the bed, too tired even to pull on pyjamas. But as my head sinks into the pillow, her face burns behind my eyes.

I have to see her.

“Computer, locate Captain Janeway.”

~Captain Janeway is in her quarters.~

“Is she awake?”

~Affirmative. Captain Janeway is awake and active.~

Of course she is.

My uniform is filthy. I pull on jeans and a sweater – the only civilian clothes I brought with me – scrub a hand through my hair and follow the computer’s directions to her quarters.

“Come,” I hear her call at my chime, and I step in and come face to face with Chakotay.

“Paris,” he says coolly.

I muster a shadow of my trademark smirk. “How’s the leg?”

“Fine.”

He turns back to the Captain, enquiry on his face, and she nods at him. “Thank you, Chakotay. Get some rest.”

He leaves, sparing me a glance as he goes; I’m not sure how to read his expression.

“What was he doing here?” I ask, turning back to her.

She’s still in the same uniform she’s worn for two days, the knees torn from crawling through Jeffries tubes, jacket stained with God knows what. Her hair is falling out of its chignon and there’s a smudge of dirt on her chin. Her eyes are glassy with fatigue, but she still manages to glare at me.

“Mr Chakotay and I had things to discuss.”

I’ll just bet they did. I’m about to ask for details when she raises a pale hand to her head, rubbing at her temple.

“Are you all right?”

Her shoulders slump and she sits, suddenly, as though her legs can’t hold her upright anymore.

“I’m fine,” she says automatically.

I step forward hesitantly. “You should go to Sickbay, get something for your headache.”

“God, no.” She holds up a hand. “I just need sleep.”

“I’ll leave you alone, then.”

“No.” Her response is sharp, immediate, and I stop in the act of turning away. “Please,” she says, quieter, “stay.”

I sit beside her and rest a tentative hand on her shoulder. She’s so tense she’s almost vibrating. For a long while she’s silent; I think she might be fighting tears. Then she says, her voice low and throbbing with desperation, “What have I done? God, Tom. What have I done?”

My fingers squeeze her shoulder. “You did the right thing, Kate,” I tell her.

She makes an agonised sound in her throat and turns into me, her face buried in my chest as she sobs. I rub my hands over her back and make useless soothing noises, and eventually she quiets, her breath shuddering, and she turns her face into mine and kisses me.

It’s desperate, fitful; she clings to me, yanking at my clothes as though she needs to crawl inside my skin. We make love on the floor of her living area, tears leaking from her closed eyes as she climaxes. When it’s over I roll on my back and gather her close, stroking her hair.

“Thank you,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry.”

She lifts her head, gives me a watery smile. It gives me the courage to ask her what I’ve been wanting to ask since she came to Auckland.

“So what were you planning to do with me if this mission had gone as planned?”

“I was planning to request you serve the rest of your sentence as my adjunct,” she murmurs. “I don’t know if the admiralty would have agreed, but I would have offered to assume custody of you.”

I’m stunned. She’d have taken responsibility for me, laid her reputation on the line. If I’d fucked it up it would’ve ended her career.

“Why?” I ask. “Why would you risk that for me?”

“The last time we met, I failed you,” she says quietly as her fingers trace a pattern on my chest. “I wanted to make up for that. And you deserved a second chance.”

“Second?” My mouth twists. “Most people would say I’ve had more chances than hot dinners.”

“I’m not most people.” She folds her arms across my chest, her face very close to mine. “You needed someone to believe in you, Tom. And I do.”

I don’t want to embarrass myself by crying when she obviously needs me to be strong, so I pull her close and kiss her instead.

=/\=

“You asked to see me, Captain?”

I stand at ease just inside the door to her ready room.

“Mr Paris, you have a problem. I've invited Chakotay and the other Maquis to become part of this crew.”

So that’s what they were talking about last night in her quarters.

“Will you provide a bodyguard for me?” I’m only half joking.

One corner of her mouth curls. “It seems you already have one. Mr Chakotay said something about his life belonging to you. He’ll be taking responsibility for your safety.”

Well, fuck me sideways. Playing the hero paid off after all.

A grin spreads over my face. “I think I’m going to enjoy this.”

“Don’t be so sure,” she warns, then she tells me the surly son of a bitch is going to be her XO. Fantastic. Ten credits says he’ll be kicking my ass for the next seventy years.

“Everyone aboard this ship will report to him,” she continues. “Including the lieutenant assigned to conn.”

I wait for the punchline.

She’s just looking at me.

“Me?”

She can’t stop the smile from breaking over her face as she pins the rank pips to my collar. “You’ve earned this, Tom,” she tells me.

I’m completely dazed. I don’t even know what to say.

“I’m only sorry your father won’t know,” she says.

I don’t give a shit. What matters is that I know. She’s putting her faith in me, and I have no intention of ever letting her down.

“Oh, he’ll know,” I tell her, wanting her to know I have faith in her, too. “When we get back.”

I want to hug her. But she’s my captain now, and I know that’s not what she requires of me. So I straighten up and we smile at each other, and then I report for my first official duty shift and the beginning of my new life.


	7. The Lieutenant

**June, 2372 - Kazon Space, Delta Quadrant**  
  
After he’s been released from Sickbay and finished Neelix’s PR piece, when I’m confident we’ve put enough distance between Voyager and Seska’s comrades-in-arms, I go to his quarters.

“Come,” he responds to my chime at his door. I enter to find him methodically unpacking the small bag he took with him on the Talaxian convoy.

“Captain,” he says with a mild surprise I suppose I deserve, straightening and waiting for me to speak.

“How are you, Tom?”

At my use of his given name, his shoulders loosen a little and he waves me to the couch. “Fighting fit, ma’am. Can I get you anything?”

“No, thank you.”

He clasps his hands behind his back and looks at me politely, waiting.

“How are you settling back in?”

He shrugs. “I was only gone a few days. There isn’t much to unpack.”

I shift in my seat. “That’s not what I meant.”

He ambles over to sit beside me. “If you’re concerned about how the crew is treating me, there’s no need, Captain. I’m a big boy.”

So all is not quite forgiven, despite the puff piece Neelix broadcasted. I wonder who’s giving him a hard time. My guess would be Torres.

And Tom isn’t the only one who hasn’t yet been absolved.

_In other words, you didn’t trust me_ , Chakotay said when I explained the plan. Tuvok tried to take the blame for leaving him in the cold, but Chakotay knew – and I knew – that ultimately, excluding him was _my_ call.

“So,” Tom says, watching me staring at my hands, “should I make myself scarce around a certain first officer for a while?”

“No scarcer than I should.”

I didn’t mean to let that slip.

“Ah.” He nods, then quotes, “ _Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman_.”

My chin jerks up. It seems Chakotay isn’t alone in finding it difficult to forgive me.

Coming from Tom, it hurts. More than it should.

“If there had been any other way, you know I’d have taken it,” I tell him quietly. “I never wanted to put you in danger.”

He leans back in his seat. “It’s not about the danger, Captain.”

I know it’s not – of course it’s not. It’s about the lies and deception. It’s about the systematic destruction of everything he’s built so determinedly since the day he came on board.

I didn’t request this of him lightly; I know how hard he’s worked to earn the trust and easy respect he engenders on this ship. Yes, Tuvok proposed the plan, yes, I agreed, but I made sure Tom knew that his participation was voluntary. I made it clear that it wasn’t an order.

Or did I?

Did he feel obliged to do this because of who he is, and who I am?

I’m aware that I’m viewed in Starfleet circles as a by-the-book officer: squeaky-clean, buttoned-up and straight down the line. I’ve worked hard to cultivate that image. And I’m quite aware that it’s the veil and shield that obscures the manipulations I’m not above indulging in.

After all, Kathryn Janeway always gets what she wants.

Tom feels indebted to me for his second chance; he’s said as much, more than once. And I knew that when I called him to my ready room to tell him about the spy. I took him into my inner circle and asked him if he’d risk his life, both mortal and emotional, for the good of the ship. For me.

One true thing I’ve always known about Tom Paris is that he is innately heroic, and, ludicrous as it sounds given his history, pure of heart. So I knew when I outlined my plan that he’d agree. No, I knew he’d leap at the chance, whatever the personal cost.

The choice I gave him was no choice at all.

Destructive, damnable, deceitful woman.

Perhaps the worst thing is that I deliberately obscured this knowledge from myself; it’s only now that I can admit it. Oh, my hand-wringing reluctance to use him to flush out the spy wasn’t faked, and if he’d died, I’d have lived with that devastation for a long, long time.

But he has every right to feel used, and every right to call me on it.

Swallowing, I lay my hand over his. “I know what you’ve given up to make this work, Tom, but I also know that you’ve already proven yourself to everyone on this ship. Once they get over the hurt feelings, everything will go back to the way it was.”

He looks at our joined hands for a moment, then smiles, turning his hand palm-up so he can curl his fingers over mine. “I’m sure you’re right, Captain,” he says.

And, just like that, I’m forgiven.

Heroic, and pure of heart.

“I’m glad you didn’t die, Tom.”

I’m not sure who moves first, but without thought or hesitation I’m in his arms and we’re kissing. No, not kissing – devouring. It’s harsh and ravenous, frantic with a need that’s unrestrained and overwhelming. There’s a moment when I’m aware that this is not the course I should be setting, but his hands tighten on my arms, yanking me close as his mouth takes mine, and without even a token murmur of protest I abandon my better conscience.

We don’t make it to the bed. Clothes are torn away or shoved aside only as far as is necessary to get at each other’s skin. His fingers tangle in my hair, pulling my head back so he can latch onto my throat with his teeth. He tries to roll me under him but I resist, pushing him backward and climbing on top of him, my thighs straddling his hips. My gasp is triumphant as I sink down onto him. I ride him, my back arched as he clutches at me.

The yell I let out as I reach my peak is a catharsis of fury and pain and sorrow. There’s nothing of the finer emotions in our sexual chase and release. But for a few moments, I feel pure and clean and free.

=/\=

Sprawled on the couch in a tangled heap of limbs, my head is pillowed on his chest and he’s combing his fingers through my sex-tossed hair, his touch gentle the way it wasn’t when we came together so fiercely just an hour before.

“You know we can’t do this anymore,” I tell him quietly. “I can’t let this – us – continue.”

I feel his fingers still. “I know.”

“And besides,” I try to smile, “it’s not fair to you. You need the chance to find someone who’ll be with you the way you deserve.”

“But what about you?” he asks softly. “Who’s going to be there for you?”

I close my eyes against the stinging. How typical of Tom Paris, and how much more difficult he makes it to give this up.

“I’ll be fine,” I answer. “I’m the captain.”

He tugs gently on my hair until I raise my face to him. His eyes are serious. “You’re the captain to everybody, but to me you’re Kate as well. Don’t forget that, okay?”

“Okay.”

“And if you get the chance to be Kate with somebody else, you should take it. Promise me.”

“You know I can’t promise that, Tom.”

“Then will you at least think about it? You can’t shut yourself off from everyone for the next seventy-five years.”

It seems terribly important to him, so I answer, “I’ll try.”

“Good.”

He shifts me under him, his hands cradling my face as he kisses me sweetly. He begins to touch me, stroking my arms, my hips, as though he’s memorising me. I curl my legs around his body and he enters me, slow, controlling the pace until I arch into him, shaking and catching my breath. When he comes, he kisses the skin over my heart, and I know that this time, it’s truly goodbye.

=/\=

I slip back to my quarters, stand under a sonic shower and pull on my nightclothes. I’m exhausted to my bones, emotionally empty, my body aching and well-used. And yet, I can’t sleep.

At 0400, I give up, pull on a uniform and trudge to the mess hall, intending to wheedle some coffee out of Neelix and finish my report on the Jonas debacle.

The galley is dark and deserted, so I rummage in the storage cupboard for my secret stash of beans and brew myself a pot of coffee. I take my customary table in the corner, facing the viewport, and pick up the PADD.

Only a few sentences in, the words are blurring. It’s not just fatigue. My mind skitters sideways into thoughts of Tom and Owen and trust and deception and Chakotay.

It was Owen Paris who ordered me on the mission to find the Maquis ship and bring Chakotay to justice. Owen knew I was a Maquis sympathiser, but he also knew I’d do anything to rescue Tuvok. He knew all too well that I am capable of defying my own principles to save a friend.

He knew this because he watched me do it, once, long ago.

In that cold Cardassian prison, when they pushed me against the wall and tore away my uniform, when they fondled my body and laughed at me, when they raped and beat me, I never gave in. Oh, I screamed for help, cried out for him, my captain; even begged a deity I never believed in to save me. But the questions they asked me – _What is your true mission? What intelligence has Starfleet gathered against us? Is the Federation planning to attack Cardassia?_ – those questions, I refused to answer.

It was only when they threatened to kill Captain Paris that I broke. I told them everything they wanted to know – not that I knew much – just so they’d leave him alone. They’d found my weakness and they exploited it.

And so, years later, did he.

A clever man, Owen Paris.

Chakotay’s intelligence file paints him as a man I do not know. It depicts him as weak, unstable, violent without cause, a man easily swayed. I have had great difficulty reconciling that file with the man I’ve deputised. From almost the moment he beamed aboard my ship, Chakotay has been unexpected.

I realise now that the file was Admiral Paris’ invention: Starfleet’s surety and my incentive to complete my mission. Chakotay is not that man, that malleable, unprincipled man. In my bones I knew it from the start, but my training and my loyalty to Owen Paris prevented me from trusting my instincts.

I should have known better. If nothing else, his treatment of his own son should have given me pause. Owen defined Tom as a wastrel and Chakotay as a thug, and on both counts he was wrong.

I should have known. But I suppose, as an impressionable ensign, I was half in love with him. It sickens me that I’ve let that legacy inform my judgement for all these years.

I won’t do it anymore. If Tom can step out from Owen’s shadow and reclaim his self-respect, then surely I can reclaim my self-belief. And Chakotay has more than earned my trust. It’s past time I let him have it.

I’m just not sure how to begin.

I pour my third cup from the coffeepot as the mess hall doors swish open behind me. Footsteps pad toward me, stopping beside my chair.

“Good morning, Commander,” I murmur without turning around.

Chakotay moves into my field of vision. “Captain. You’re up early.”

“Very early.” I smile up at him, a little tentatively.

It seems to be the right thing to do; he smiles back and indicates the chair opposite me. “Mind if I join you?”

“I’d like that very much.”

He slides gracefully into the seat. “Is there enough of that coffee left to spare me a cup?”

“Oh, I don’t know, Commander.” I flick him a glance to let him know I’m teasing. “This is the captain’s private blend, and it’s in limited supply. I can’t go sharing it with just anybody.”

“Consider it a special request.” His smile widens.

I laugh. “All right. But we’re going to need a fresh pot. You’ll find out where I keep the beans.”

I push myself up from the table and extend a hand to help him up as well. His grasp is warm and firm. Solid. Comforting.

Maybe Tom is right. Maybe I can’t cut myself off from simple human contact for the next seventy-five years.

“Don’t worry, Captain. Your secret is safe with me.”

“Then, Chakotay,” I answer, “it’s a good thing I trust you.”

He smiles.


End file.
